Finally, a series win for the Braves in 2025!

Hopefully this will be the start of the Braves finally getting their season off to a proper start

Despite the fact that the Atlanta Braves had gotten off to a very slow start and the Philadelphia Phillies had burst out of the gates to start this season, this was always going to be a hard-fought series between two teams who have been battling at or near the top of the division for a few years now. Sure enough, the Braves ended up being up for the challenge and ended up taking the series against the Phillies — giving them their much-desired and hotly-anticipated first series win of the series while also handing Philadelphia their first series loss of the season.

Plain and simple, the Braves badly needed something like this to go their way and the obvious hope now is that this will be the spark that gets this team going in the right direction — even if they had to catch a red-eye to Tampa following the wacky final game of this three-game series.

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Tuesday, April 8
Braves 7, Phillies 5

The first game of this series was expected to be a pitchers’ duel, as Chris Sale and Zack Wheeler were matched up against each other. The two NL Cy Young Award favorites from 2024 didn’t even get through the early portion of their respective starts in scoreless fashion, as the Phillies jumped out ahead early before Sean Murphy and the Braves responded in big fashion with a three-run second inning, with all three runs coming from a homer from Murphy in his first AB of the season. Unfortunately, the Phillies responded in kind with three runs of their own in the next frame. Chris Sale failed to make it through five innings and Zack Wheeler “only” made it through 5.1 innings, himself.

However, before Wheeler left, the Braves tacked on a couple more runs thanks to another RBI knock from Murphy and a game-tying sacrifice fly from Michael Harris II. Once both starters were gone, it was 5-5 — exactly what everybody expected with those two guys starting the game, right? It became a bullpen game from the middle portion onward of this contest and in a pleasant development, the Braves won the battle of the bullpens. Atlanta’s relief corps stepped up in a major way and Austin Riley delivered the go-ahead RBI knock that put the Braves in front. An insurance run on a wild pitch made it 7-5 and Raisel Iglesias made sure that it finished 7-5 as he picked up his first save of the season and the Braves were off to a great start in this series.

Wednesday, April 9
Phillies 4, Braves 3

Heading into the middle game of this series, the Braves finally found themselves in a position to potentially win a series for the first time this season — and against their rivals from Philadelphia, no less. Remember that pitchers’ duel that everybody figured would happen between Sale and Wheeler? Turns out, we got it for the period while Grant Holmes and Taijuan Walker were out there, as both hurlers kept their opposition off the scoreboard while they were out there — Holmes for four innings and Walker for six.

The Phillies broke through for the first run of the game when Bryson Stott hit a grounder that Ozzie Albies attempted to field in shallow right field. He made an excellent stop but lost it on the transfer and Max Kepler came around to score. The Braves did respond to this immediately, however, as Orlando Arcia poked one through the infield that got past both Trea Turner and Alec Bohm to tie the game and then Michael Harris II put the Braves in front with a sacrifice fly.

Then we got our compulsory moment of torture from Bryce Harper as he hit a two-run shot to put the Phillies in front again. Austin Riley responded with a homer of his own — this was after he failed to capitalize on two bases-loaded chances earlier in the game but at this point, the Braves were probably just happy to see Riley continue to get his bat going in any way possible.

With the game tied heading into the ninth inning, Raisel Iglesias came on for a second straight day of work against the top of Philadelphia’s order. Instead of Harper being the one to continue his dominant run against Iglesias, Trea Turner instead poked one out to left center for a go-ahead solo homer. The Braves had another chance in the ninth to potentially tie it up but Sean Murphy struck out against Jose Alvarado and the Phillies evened up the series in an exciting manner.

Thursday, April 10
Braves 4, Phillies 2

This one was a doozy. Spencer Schwellenbach was excellent once again but his start was curtailed by an inning because rain ended up stopping the game once the top of the seventh inning rolled around. After a near-three hour rain delay, the game restarted with both teams tied at one run apiece and that’s how the game stayed heading into extra innings.

Both teams had a golden opportunity to push past a run in the 10th inning but naturally this game was destined for an ending much wilder than simply one team pushing across a run and that being the end of it. Once the 11th inning rolled around, the Phillies did push past a run, as José Suarez walked in a run in disappointing fashion. Fortunately, the damage was limited to that one run and it was on the Braves to cash in their Manfred Man at second base.

Austin Riley continued his revival at the plate as he ended up being the one to cash in that ghost runner with a leadoff double. With the winning run now in scoring position, Marcell Ozuna decided to just go ahead and score a run, himself, by crushing a walk-off home run that sent all the sickos who stayed for the ending home happy — including this guy in particular.

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Needless to say, the Braves badly needed a series like this to go their way. It’s especially encouraging given that the Braves showed plenty of life at the plate during this series. This wasn’t a repeat of the boom-or-bust two-game affair that the Braves had with the Marlins — if anything, you could look at it as the Braves seemingly getting their footing at the plate. 24 runs over this five-game homestand may as well have qualified as an offensive explosion when compared to what they were doing to start the season out West.

Most importantly, the offense coincided with wins. While the Braves are still underwater, getting that series win against a good Phillies team is massive. Keep in mind that Philadelphia came into this series having taken down the Dodgers over the course of a three-game series and while Los Angeles (and the other West Coast teams) are subject to the same type of struggles going across the country that the Braves regularly go through, that’s still a very impressive series win for Philadelphia. The fact that the Braves were able to take two-out-of-three was huge and obviously we’re all hoping that this will be the type of baseball that we’ll see from Atlanta going forward.

They’ll have a tough turnaround with this road trip taking them through Tampa and Toronto for the next handful of days but at least we now know that this Braves team can and will show signs of life. The hole is deep but the Braves appear to be up for the challenge of digging themselves out of it. Oh, and while we’re at it, check out what Spencer Strider did on the farm. Help is on the way, y’all.